As water conservation continues to grow as a national and global concern, it is becoming abundantly clear that reduction in water usage and eliminating waste is an important national and global objective. Although the US population is increasing daily, the aquifers that supply potable water do not necessarily replenish according to demand. In some cases, up to 20% of the nation's population may experience moderate to extreme drought conditions at any point time. It is possible that many more will routinely experience significant drought levels in the future. Added to the population growth and limited replenishing of the aquifers, water utility infrastructures are already being stressed beyond their designed capacity while private wells often can run dry.
Toilets leaks that waste precious water have plagued us for years. While modern toilets are generally very reliable, they can and do malfunction from time to time. Perhaps the most common malfunction is when the so-called “flapper” (the rubber or other “flap” that controls the exit of water from the tank into the bowl) remains open, leaks or is misaligned. A stuck-open flapper can waste a lot of water. Sometimes the fix is as simple as jiggling the flush handle. Other times, it is necessary to replace the flapper.
Although often difficult to see and identify, a leaking flapper can sometimes be detected by observing a slight flow of water from the rim holes into the toilet bowl. It is also sometimes possible to detect the flapper's failure to close by listening for water running or trickling continuously into the tank, or for the periodic activation of the fill valve. People who are hearing-impaired may not be able to hear the water running. More modern toilets are often so quiet in their operation that a leak is audibly undetectable. Reasons that account for so many leaking toilet flappers thus include people not hearing the toilet “run” or failing to visually observe the water flowing from the bowl rim holes into the bowl. Even when these conditions are observed, the observer does not always conclude that there is a problem, or that water is even being wasted. There are many people who have paid high water bills for years, believing the bills to be normal.
Leaking toilet flappers are not an isolated problem. In fact, without routine maintenance, it isn't a question of “if” a toilet is going to leak, but “when”. There are over 250 million toilets in the United States. It is estimated that up to 20% are leaking at any point in time because of deteriorated, faulty, or improperly seated flappers. Some studies show that the average leaking toilet wastes 100 gallons per day or more, suggesting a total nationwide daily waste of over 5 billion gallons, or nearly 2 trillion gallons per year. This problem is not limited to the United States. Unpressurized tank-based toilets that use flappers are common around the world as are other toilet designs that can leak.
On the shelves of hardware stores and do-it-yourself home supply centers, you can find up to a dozen different types of replacement flappers, many touted as being “universal”, to address this very common problem of preventing leaks. Water utilities often acknowledge that the number-one reason for high water bills to home owners is due to leaking toilet flappers. When customer service representatives of these water utilities receive a call about a high water bill, it is common for them to send out dye packs or food coloring for the customer to put inside the toilet tank. If the flapper is leaking, the dye or food coloring should be visible in the toilet bowl after a short period of time. This is a simple and effective way to detect leaky flappers, but often much water has been wasted (with corresponding cost or well run dry) by the time the problem is discovered and diagnosed.
Not surprisingly, there have been many previous attempts at devices that will automatically detect leaking toilet flappers. Yet, very few of these have ever resulted in successfully commercialized products. Most are not practical, too complicated for the average home owner to install, or too expensive. Some require the entire toilet to be replumbed. Others require replacement of internal toilet components. Still others don't provide helpful feedback to the user. Just as there are those who will not change or add oil in their cars until the red “OIL” light illuminates on their dashboards, some people will not replace or fix their toilet flapper unless there is something that indicates the desirability to do so. When it comes to simple routine maintenance, many of us benefit from being advised what to do and when to do it.
There is thus a long felt but unsolved need for an effective and non-invasive way to automatically detect leakage or other unintended operation of a flush toilet and provide an alert to prompt the user to take corrective action.
Exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementations herein provide a device for in use being vibrationally coupled to a toilet tank of the type having a fill valve therein that automatically refills the toilet tank, The exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation comprising an enclosure that in use conducts translational vibrations produced by toilet fill valve refilling. The enclosure is dimensioned and configured to define a resonant cavity which in use supports sympathetic resonant vibrations excited by the conducted translational vibrations. A transducer disposed within the enclosure and vibrationally coupled to the resonant cavity produces a signal responsive to the conducted translational vibrations and the sympathetic resonant vibrations.
The enclosure may be configured to self-stick on the outside of the toilet tank, and may include an adhering structure disposed on the enclosure, the adhering structure in use being removably adherable to a flush toilet porcelain outer toilet tank surface.
The adhering structure may comprise foam-based double sided adhesive tape.
The enclosure may include first and second enclosure portions, at least one of the portions including a groove that mates with a lip provided by the other of the first and second enclosure portions to provide a substantially water-resistant seal therebetween.
An electronic circuit board may be disposed between the first and second enclosure portions, the first enclosure portion providing plural rib structures that press the electronic circuit board into the second enclosure portion and thereby tightly vibrationally couple the printed circuit board to vibration generated by the toilet due to refill turbulence, the transducer being mounted to the circuit board.
The resonant cavity may be dimensioned to resonate at an acoustic frequency that is at or near a frequency the transducer is responsive to.
The exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation may be self-contained to detect water leaking from the toilet tank without contact to any flowing liquid.
The exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation may define a slot from which a battery pull tab protrudes, the slot opening into the resonant cavity.
The exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation may be no more than 8 mm in its longest dimension.
The exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation can be adhered or otherwise attached to the outside or inside surface of a flush toilet, in order to electronically monitor a toilet and provide visual and/or audible notification when the toilet is leaking.
The exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation may electronically monitor the sound, vibration and/or noise generated by a toilet during its operation and provide an alert such as a visual and/or audible notification to inform a user or other entity when there is a leak.
Exemplary illustrative non-limiting installation includes attaching The exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation by use of adhesive to the inside or outside surface of the tank, or by use of a flexible hinge or hanger, or manually snapping as an assembly onto the fill valve cap, or mechanically coupled to any water line feeding the toilet or toilets to be monitored, or other methods.
A further exemplary illustrative non-limiting device for use with a tank and flapper-based toilet can integrated with an additional attaching structure for manual attachment to the fill valve cap. A support mechanism supported by an attaching structure can act to conditionally interfere with the operation of the toilet tank fill valve assembly to prevent overflows and/or water waste in response to leak detection. See commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/036,629 filed Feb. 25, 2008 (now U.S. Pat. No. 7,757,708) entitled “Toilet Bowl Overflow Prevention and Water Conservation System and Method” incorporated herein by reference.
A desirable design objective for the exemplary non-limiting implementation is simplicity of installation and use. Achieving that objective without any user setup or calibration can be accomplished by unique sensor and electromechanical technology that allows the product to be placed on virtually any tank and flapper based or other toilet (there are hundreds of different models), accounting for dozens of different types of fill valves, flappers, and variations in water pressure (even on the same toilet), while simultaneously ignoring or being less sensitive to external noise, incidental bathroom disturbances and all kinds of interference.
Additional features and advantages of non-limiting exemplary illustrative implementations include:                Environmentally friendly—protects the environment by conserving water and eliminating water waste        Low cost        Easy to deploy        Attending to leaks can save money        Installs in seconds—No tools required        Fully Automatic—No set up necessary        Works on any toilet        Visual and/or audible alerts        Small, sleek design        High sensitivity—detects even leaks you cannot see or hear        Detects vibration, sound and/or noise the toilet generates during operation (e.g., from turbulence when fill valve open)        Detects leakage based on water inflow using non-contacting sensing techniques        Able to effectively detect even intermittent leaks        Same transducer can be shared between sensing and annunciating operations, thereby saving cost        No user input required—fully automatic operation        Easy Peel/Place/Pull installation        Directly acousto-mechanically coupled to toilet        Non-contact—no need to contact water or interfere with water inflow or outflow        No plumbing required        Non-invasive: no modification of toilet or toilet components required        Senses wide spectrum noise generated by water turbulence within the toilet        Can use an inexpensive rugged low power sensor such as a piezo-electric vibration sensor        Can provide status when toilet is flushed        Can provide status periodically to inform user that unit is operating        Display can be complex or simple; some implementations display detailed information, other implementations provide simple status display such as Green (unit functioning properly), Red (toilet is leaking and requires attention), Yellow (battery low)        Leak indication can be provided periodically (e.g., every 20 seconds) when a leak has recently been detected (e.g., within the last 24 hours) and/or after user-initiated or other flushes        Leak indication can be provided with less frequency if leak has been detected but not so recently (e.g., audible indication approximately every three hours if a leak has not been corrected within 72 hours after detection)        Can be located outside, inside or within toilet tank or other structure        Can be installed on a toilet in the field or at time of manufacture        Other        